You've learnt a lot, that's worth fair bit. Going forward, you will need to make money. How are you making any money from this?
We have felt comfortable supporting Maptia ourselves for now. However, it is our long-term aim to grow Maptia into a sustainable organisation whose primary aim is to re-invest in its community to directly fund and support talented photographers and writers to tell impact-driven stories.
We are currently in the process of deciding whether to convert to a non-profit foundation or to another similar structure of organisation that is better suited to our long-term mission and our values. At the very least, over the next two years, we are committed to launching a non-profit sister organisation for Maptia, and are already working on a number of storytelling partnerships with non-profit organisations (like charity: water) from all over the world.
As a first step towards our goal of becoming sustainable, we are investigating a small number of partnerships with inspiring brands and organisations who share our values, who believe in our vision, and who will add value and engage with the storytelling process.
Our primary aim is to be able to start compensating some of the talented storytellers on our site for their work, and to be able to cover the running costs of the Maptia platform. We pledge never to stick logos or other branding on (or anywhere near) Maptia stories unless the authors are being well compensated and are fully on-board with the idea, and furthermore, we will only partner with authentic organisations who believe in the power of storytelling as much as we do.
If our persistence over the last few years is anything to go by, we will figure it out... and even if all else fails, then Dean (our CTO and also a talented musician) has promised to busk part time to cover our costs. In other words, we will do everything humanely possible to make sure that Maptia will be around for many years to come!
If you keep it up, you are definitely going somewhere!
Did you try to hire any local coders or even interns at your start-up?. There a are a lot of aspiring engineers in morocco who would have benefited from an experience of working for a start-up like yours.
How hard was/is it to decipher advice from jealousy?
Fellow Chilean here, just glad to hear Startup Chile was in some way useful to you guys. Would have loved to meet you when you where around ;)
Cheers!
